What was the impact of the Terror?

The Enrages:

·         Enrages (group, Jacques Roux = spokesperson).

·         Economic situation continued to deteriorate summer 1793. Mid-August, assignat below 1/3 its face value and drought had reduced supplies into Paris by ¾.

·         Roux shocked when he saw people starving. His followers were wage-earners, casual labourers and the poor and unemployed. His aim was for the Convention to deal immediately with starvation and poverty, when it did nothing, he denounced it.

·         His programme was Economic Terror – he demanded execution of hoarders. Robespierre wanted to destroy him.

·         Roux was influential figure in journee of 5^th September 1793. Roux was arrested during this journee.

Armee revolutionnaire:

·         4^th September – crowd gathered before Hotel de Ville to demand bread and higher wages. Then marched on the Convention forcing it to accept a series of radical measures.

·         Convention authorised formation of Parisian ‘armee revolutionnaire’ consisting mainly of sans-culottes. Purpose:

o   Ensure food supplies of Paris and large provincial cities.

o   Round up deserters, hoarders, refractory priests, religious ‘fanatics’, political suspects and royalist rebels.

o   Establish revolutionary ‘justice’ in areas of south and west.

·         Parisian and provincial armies engaged in dechristianisation.

·         Parisian army successful in supplying Paris with bread until 1794, but numbers were small and they met constant hostility from rural population.

·         Great joy in countryside when they were disbanded. CPS didn’t like them as they were anarchic and outside the control of the authorities and they created opposition to the Revolution.

Economic Terror:

·         July 1793- Convention passed law the imposed death penalty for hoarding food and other supplies.

·         29^th September – law of General Maximum passed to control prices- fixed price of bread and many essential good services at 1/3 above price of June 1790. Wages that determined prices also fixed at 50% above level of 1790.

·         When peasant refused to sell grain at maximum price, government compelled to requisition supplies.

·         Maximum divided common people against each other, sans-culottes clashed with peasants and conflict between town and country deepened.

·         Co-operation of wealthy peasants necessary for government. To meet concerns of farmers and other producers, government revised prices upwards in February.

·         Short term- government’s measures successful- towns and armies fed, assignat worth 22% of its face value in August rose to 48% in December 1793.

Political Terror:

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